


New Moon

by thequidditchpitch_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Erotica, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Romance, Slash, The Quidditch Pitch: The Changing Room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-03
Updated: 2006-07-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 11:54:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10808514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequidditchpitch_archivist/pseuds/thequidditchpitch_archivist
Summary: What if James didn't make it in time to save Snape from the Shrieking Shack?  Remus/James, Severus/Lily, AU





	New Moon

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).

  
Author's notes: Birthday Giftfic for my darling alittlewhisper on the momentous event of her 19th birthday. Super Huge thanks to judas_iscariot for the snogging and slaying of run-on sentences! This story was written pre-HBP, so some parts are now inaccurate, however i have chosen to keep them intact for the integrity of the story.  


* * *

  
Remus awakens to the bright white of the infirmary and nearly says that he had the most horrible dream but then he sees the stricken faces around his bed and he knows. Peter chews nervously at his lip and Sirius looks everywhere but at Remus. James is serious for once in his life, placing a gentle hand on Remus’ bare foot where it sticks out from under the covers to reassure Remus, or perhaps himself.  
The sound coming from beside him is a soft moan and he turns his head and sees, before Madam Pomfrey can close the curtain, a thin sallow body tinged pink with fever with a stark white bandage wrapped heavily around one shoulder.  
The sense memory of the metallic taste of blood flashes through his mind, searing inside his chest.  
“Oh God,“ his voice breaks for the first time in two years, and Remus crumples, hands over his face, wishing that his cuts and bruises hurt more because the monster in him deserves it.

~O~  
  
“Severus?”  
Something touches his hand and Severus awakens slowly. He opens his eyes and tries to sit up but the sharp pain in one shoulder and a cool hand on the other force him back down. He blinks a few times to bring into focus the faces in front of him against the bright white in the background.. The benevolent faces of the headmaster and Madam Pomfrey look down on him.  
“Severus, do you know where you are?” The headmaster’s eyebrows knit together concernedly, so completely unlike his usual infuriatingly jovial manner. Severus' throat feels thick and his brow is heavy against his eyes.  
“Th-” he rasps out and Madam Pomfrey holds a glass to his lips. He swallows with great difficulty. He glances around at the white curtains and walls and the striped cotton pajamas he is wearing.  
“Th’infirm’ry?” he says finally, and licks at his chapped lips. Dumbledore’s mouth curves a tiny bit, but his eyes are sober.  
His feet are hot, too hot, and he kicks at the blankets until Pomfrey neatly folds them back.  
“Do you remember what happened last night?”  
A few foggy images develop in his mind: fighting with Black, a dusty tunnel, pushing Potter aside, a roar, a flash of sharp teeth-  
Dumbledore sees his hesitation and take it for confusion. “Last night, after a scuffle with Mr. Black, you followed after Mr. Lupin into a tunnel leading to the Shrieking Shack. Despite Mr. Potter’s efforts to stop you, you entered the shack. Therein, you discovered that Mr. Lupin is, in fact, a werewolf.”  
A flash of sharp teeth, then searing pain. His shoulder. Severus stares hard at Dumbledore, hoping, praying to whoever would listen that this was some kind of sick joke. The headmaster lays a cool, wrinkled hand on top of his, but Severus snatches his hand away.  
“No.” he says raggedly, and Dumbledore and Pomfrey exchange a look.  
“Severus, I’m sorry, you were bitten.”  
“No,” he says again, shaking his head.  
“Werewolf saliva, as you probably know, is contagious, and since your wound is so deep, it is highly likely-”  
“You’re lying!” Severus cries out raggedly, and tries to sit up again, head swimming, batting away Madam Pomfrey’s hands on his shoulder. ‘This is some kind of sick joke. I’m not- I can’t be-”  
“Severus, please, calm yourself. You’re still feverish from the virus.” He wonders how Dumbledore can be so calm. He should be screaming, should be shouting, should be doing something besides sitting there with such a serene expression on his face.  
Severus takes in a great wheezing breath, frantic. “I’m a wizard, not a… a… beast!” It’s not true, he repeats in his head, a frenzied mantra that makes his chest tight and his throat ache and his eyes sting like ocean water. In sudden madness, desperate to breathe, to prove it’s all a lie, he begins to rip at the bandage, tugging at the cloth, ignoring the spikes of pain that course through his shoulder.  
“I’ll show you, it can’t be true, it’s not true!” Madam Pomfrey takes out her wand and Severus' hands snap down to the mattress, held by invisible bonds.  
“Leave it be, Severus, you’ll risk infection if you open the dressing,” she says sternly as he thrashes, still a bit dizzy.  
He sits up as far as he can go with his hands secured and, trembling, roars, “IT’S ALREADY INFECTED!!!” and collapses back on the bed. Hot tears of rage spill down his cheeks and he chokes on hiccoughing sobs, closing his eyes and wishing he could close his ears to the soft cooing reassurances of Madam Pomfrey.  
  
~O~  
  
James uses the map to find Remus sitting on the roof of Gryffindor Tower, hugging his knees and staring out over the lake. James climbs up onto the slate roof and sits down next to Remus, silent.  
“I’m a monster.” Remus says without looking at him, voice flat.  
“Moony…” says James softly, wishing Remus would just look at him.  
“I’m the reason they want to lock up all werewolves and throw away the key.” The way Remus slowly closes his eyes and presses his lips together makes James’ chest ache a little. “And why shouldn’t they? I’m dangerous- practically a murderer.”  
“Don’t say that.”  
Remus pushes his hair out of his eyes, wincing a bit as he brushes against the newly-healed cut on his eyebrow, “And why not? It’s the truth.”  
“The hell it is! You’re the victim here!”  
Remus turns and looks at him sharply. “Were you and I in the same shack last night? I bit him! I nearly killed him- might as well have, his life’s over now.” Remus bites his bottom lip to keep it from trembling.  
“No, Moony. I am not going to let you blame yourself for this. Not when you were the one who was used. Blame Sirius for baiting him, or blame Snape for not listening to me. Blame me for not getting there fast enough or trying hard enough to stop him, but don’t you dare blame yourself when it rests so heavily on our shoulders.”  
Remus doesn’t say anything for a moment, and simply searches James’ eyes for some sign of doubt. Satisfied, he takes a deep, shuddering breath and brushes that stubborn strand out of his eyes once more.  
“They’ll expel me,” he says softly, eyes liquid.  
James shakes his head, “They wouldn’t. Not unless Snape’s parents pulled him out of school. They couldn’t expel one werewolf and allow another to stay. And besides, Dumbledore would fight for you. He knows you’re innocent.” Remus flinches visibly at the word ‘innocent’ but doesn’t fight James on it. He turns back to stare across the lake and James wraps his arm around Remus' shoulders.  
“Pomfrey says he’s going to be okay, that he’ll heal up just fine.” James leans his head against Remus' shoulder and watches as the squid gracefully arches its tentacles out of the water, splashing as they return to the water. Remus relaxes almost imperceptibly at his words, and then very slowly leans his cheek against James’ forehead.  
  
~O~  
  
Severus has a private room in the infirmary. It’s lonely, but it’s for the best.  
No funny looks, no questions about the wound on his shoulder. Shortly after he was bitten, Slytherin House was told he was attacked by a heart hound in the forbidden forest while collecting night-blooming heartsease for an extra credit assignment. A nasty wound that takes long to heal, but no lingering side effects. Not that anyone would care about him anyway, he thinks cynically.  
It’s been a week already and the fever shows little sign of letting up. Pomfrey says it’ll take until the first full moon before it goes away completely. Severus secretly hopes he won’t survive that long.  
The one letter he received was a sharp-cornered envelope delivered by the Snape family owl, and the wax seal on it broke messily when he opened it with shaking hands, wax crumbling into his lap. In his mother’s looped hand was written a single sentence: “Tell no one of your condition.”  
Just like that. He knows, now more than ever, that it is blood and pride above all else. Wouldn’t want to tarnish the family’s image by associating them with the diseased animal he is now.  
There is a knock on the door, and Severus says, “Come in,” automatically as his only visitors so far have been Pomfrey or Dumbledore. His head of house came once, right after the attack, but he was little reassurance for a frightened boy with no cure in sight.  
The girl who opens the door is not Pomfrey, but a red-headed Gryffindor named Lily Evans. She sets down a tray of potion vials and turns to look at him, hands on her hips, looking remarkably like Pomfrey when it’s time to force those vile liquids down his throat. But this is not Pomfrey, it’s some girl his age, a Mudblood, in the same house as Potter and Black and that thing that bit him; that thing he is now, and he cannot contain the snarl that comes to his lips.  
“What are you doing here, Mudblood?” he says with acid in his voice, but there is no flinch at the word in Lily’s expression, just defiant eyes and a hard-set jaw.  
“I am Madam Pomfrey’s apprentice for the term in preparation for my future career in the healing profession. Eight Hufflepuff second-years were just brought in with a bad case of screaming boils due to a rather unfortunate Herbology accident so she’ll be held up for most of the afternoon.  
Therefore, I have been assigned to administer your potions,” she says succinctly, turning to the tray and arranging the bottles in a row. She pours doses into vials according to a piece of parchment taken from her robe pocket.  
“I already told Pomfrey, I don’t see the point in subjecting me to these vile concoctions if they’re not going to-” he shuts his mouth. She couldn’t possibly know, could she? If Pomfrey told her… Well, it was already done, and she’d probably be more likely to keep her mouth shut than Potter and Black.  
Evans scowls and hands him a vial. “Drink up,” she says in an artificially cheery voice, and Severus downs it with a grimace. It tastes of soap and licorice, and clings to his throat like mucous. Thankfully, it’s fast-working, and it does help the throbbing in his infected wound a bit as he downs the next vial, One by one he swallows the potions under Lily’s watchful eye, each more disgusting than the last, the flavours compounding on his tongue. She sets the last one on the tray and watches the sour look on his face for a moment before pouring him a glass of water and handing it to him. The water is cool and clean as it washes away some of the bitter taste in his mouth, and Severus' scowl has turned half-hearted, most of the venom now gone from him.  
“Now, I’m to change your dressing.” Snape nearly panics. She’ll see the bite and then know for sure- “Animal attack, right? I hear those heart hounds can be bloody vicious. Good thing you managed to fight it off so well,” She says, and he relaxes a bit as her cool fingers carefully peel away the white gauze wrapped around his shoulder, revealing the red, angry teeth marks. He hisses at the sharp pain of cold air hitting the tender skin and she tries to smile reassuringly at him, but concern shows through her eyes.  
She watches him for a moment, waiting for the pinch in his forehead to fade, and then casts a sanitizing spell on the wound. Slowly and carefully, she re-wraps the gauze around the bite cool fingertips brushing against his feverish skin, soft and soothing.  
She seals the bandage with a charm and takes t,he tray with her as she leaves, tossing, “Pomfrey will be by after dinner to give you your next round,” over her shoulder before leaving and closing the door behind her.  
Severus half-wonders if a werewolf is below even Mudbloods in the grand scheme of things.  
  
~O~  
  
Sirius isn’t hungry, which worries James.  
He sits in the Great Hall, pushing mash around his plate with his fork, occasionally squashing a pea or two and then stirring it to swirl the white and green with lumpy brown gravy. Peter doesn’t notice and instead munches happily on a roll and chats with Frank Longbottom about the latest professional Quidditch scores. Remus picks at his roll and stares half-heartedly at his plate as if he was looking at a flobberworm instead of dinner. It’s been two weeks already and Remus and Sirius have barely acknowledged each other’s presence.  
“Prongs, can you please pass the pumpkin juice?” Sirius says, although Remus is closer to it. Moony doesn’t look up, preferring to stare harder at the congealing food on his plate. James sighs and reaches across the table and hands the juice to Sirius, who glances fleetingly at Remus as a flicker of sadness passes over his face.  
  
~O~  
  
Pomfrey is tired of listening to Snape’s whining, so she assigns his daily treatment to Lily, who’s proved herself to be quite the fast learner and as hard nosed as anyone. Every afternoon, she brings his potions, checks his health and changes his bandages. Sometimes he glares at her and makes some scathing remark about her incompetence or her heritage or both; other times, he simply stares at the wall, seemingly lacking even the energy to be irritated at her. It is those days that she worries the most, and seeing someone so depressed, even someone as horrid as Severus Snape, eats at her insides like a worm.  
After three weeks in the infirmary, two under her care, Lily decides to do something about it.  
“How are you feeling today, Severus?”  
He gives her a half-hearted glare, but doesn’t speak.  
“You know, conversations usually work better when the second party actually makes an effort.”  
She glares back at him until he sighs heavily and says, “What do you want, Evans?”  
Lily sits on a chair at his bedside and smiles. “Just trying to be friendly.”  
“Well, I have enough friends, thank you very much, so forgive me if I’m not desperate to join in your little Gryffindor tea party.” Severus rolls on his side, turning away from her, and she rolls her eyes.  
“Friends? You mean all those members of your house that haven’t so much as set foot inside the infirmary since you got admitted here? Those friends?”  
Severus doesn’t answer, and Lily puts a hand on his arm.  
“Why can’t you just accept that I might genuinely want to be friends with you and might even-” She shouldn’t say it, but she has to suddenly, “- might even fancy you.”  
Severus' arm stiffens under her hand. “Don’t fool yourself, Evans.”  
“Why?” She asks, ire rising, and holds onto his arm tighter, “It it because I’m a Muggleborn? Can’t stain your perfect family tree with my dirty blood?” Her eyes sting, but she refuses to cry, not like this, not in front of him.  
He laughs mirthlessly, “I doubt anyone would care anymore.”  
“Why then? Because I’m a Gryffindor? Because I’m ugly? Because of my friends?”  
Her voice gets louder with every question until Severus sits up suddenly, grabs her arms and shouts, “BECAUSE I’M A SODDING WEREWOLF!!”  
She stares at him, wide-eyed, completely at a loss for words.  
“You want to know how I got these teeth marks? It wasn’t a heart hound or a redcap or a hippogriff, it was your good friend Remus Lupin, who bit me and passed on his fucking disease to me and in just a few days, I‘ll be a monster just like he is! Happy now?” Snape’s hands drop from where they were squeezing her arms and fall to his lap as he stares at the wall, lip quivering, something besides despondency finally showing in his face.  
Anger. Sadness. Grief.  
Lily stares at him for a moment, processing the new information, and then touches his chin, bringing his eyes to hers.  
“If you honestly think that telling me that changes anything about the way I feel, then you’re dimmer than I thought.”  
Severus stares back, unsure of what to say or do, and Lily takes advantage of his confusion and cups his chin in her hand, leans forward and gently presses her lips against his. He stiffens, eyes wide, as she softly kisses him and sides one hand behind his neck, warm against his skin. He must be mad, because after a moment, he kisses her back, slow movements against her lips, closing his eyes and allowing himself to just feel. Lily sighs against his mouth, fingers now threading into the hair at the nape of his neck, and for a brief moment, there is no infirmary or potions or bandages or shame- there’s just the soft feel of her lips against his and the slow rhythm of her breath and the curve of her waist under Severus' palms.  
Neither hears the door open behind them until a voice calls out “Madam Pom-” and then stops, words caught in his throat. Severus pushes her away and turns to the door, the horror in his eyes matching the expression on Sirius Black’s face. Sirius blinks three times as if he’s hoping it’s a mirage, and then croaks out, “Oh God, I think I’m going to be ill,” and runs, hand over his mouth, out the door.  
  
~O~  
  
Sirius’ stomach lurches when he thinks about it. Evans, the girl James has fancied since he can remember, locking lips with that greasy-haired git. He looks out the window in a moment of madness, just to make sure that the sky isn’t falling down in big dusty chunks because it seems this would only happen during the apocalypse.  
He has to tell James. He can’t not tell James about something as unspeakably horrible as this. No, he’s never make it a day if he tried to hide it. He’d have to hole up in the library, suffocating under a pile of books so James couldn’t find him, and even then he’d still probably end up blurting it out to whoever passed by. He definitely has to tell James.  
Peter is sitting on his bed, reading a potions text and chewing on the end of a sugar quill thoughtfully. James is at practice (thank god) and Remus is… Well, Remus is probably as far away as possible because he can’t seem to stand being in the same room as Sirius for more than a few minutes at a time. Sirius stomach twists a bit at the gnawing guilt that lurks there, but he forces himself focus on the task at hand. How to break the news to James.  
He needs a buffer, he needs to get James nice and relaxed before he breaks the news so Prongs doesn’t fly off the handle and hurt something (or someone). And they need to be as far away from the infirmary as possible. The two of them have enough detention to last the rest of the term as it is, and Merlin only knows what the rest of the house would do if they lost any more points.  
He needs to get James drunk.  
“Pete,” he says, and Wormtail looks up expectantly.  
“Yeah Sirius?” he says, and Sirius rummages through his trunk.  
“I have a job for you. A very, very important job for you.”  
Peter quirks an eyebrow suspiciously. “What kind of job?”  
“Our dear friend Prongs is going to get some very bad news very soon, and so we need to get him as pissed as possible beforehand so hopefully he won’t do something very stupid. Aha!” Sirius says as his hand wraps around a leather-wrapped object and he pulls it out of the trunk.  
“Now, I just want you to know that I trust you Pete- I really do, because I wouldn’t just let anyone do a job as important as this,” he unwraps the object, his lock-picking knife, and holds it out to Peter. “You know where Filch’s liquor stash is, right?” Peter nods. “Now, you know I don’t give this to just anyone, but I trust you Wormtail, because I know that you know that if you break or lose this, next time you’re a rat, you may find yourself missing a tail. Now, I don’t know what part that translates to when you change back, but my suspicion is that you may come back without a significant portion of your arse.”  
Peter takes the knife carefully, as if he was being passed a holy relic, and nods again. “Got it Padfoot.”  
Sirius grins widely. “Shrieking shack, half an hour.”  
Now, to lure James without too much suspicion…  
  
~O~  
  
Three tipsy boys stumble into a dark and quiet bedroom, squinting in the moonlight streaming through the window. Peter crawls under his coverlet with all his clothes on, curls up in a ball, clutching his pillow, and passes out, snoring softly. Sirius steadies himself on a bedpost and waggles his eyebrows at James before stripping off his shirt and wriggling out of his trousers and falling backwards into his bed, not bothering to get under the covers. James conjures himself a glass of water with a whispered incantation and sips at it, cringing slightly at the slight metallic taste that conjured water always seems to have.  
He looks over to Moony’s bed and isn’t surprised to find it empty. The moon is nearly full and Remus becomes somewhat of an insomniac those last few days before the change, often taking to wandering the corridors or sneaking into the library to occupy himself until the sun rises and the wolf in him recedes for another day. Only Dumbledore knows why Filch always seems to be duly distracted those nights.  
James isn’t able to sleep either, or perhaps he doesn’t want to. Not with the chance he’ll dream of Lily and Snape and broken hearts and beasts. It is a whim, but rather than scrabbling through Sirius’ trunks for the map, he leans out the open window and looks up to see two bare feet dangling off the edge of the roofline. He climbs out the window and pulls himself up carefully, going slow to avoid the dizziness alcohol can bring, and pulls himself up onto the roof, sitting down next to Remus.  
Remus turns to look at James and offers a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.  
“I couldn’t sleep,” he says with a shrug, “it’s-”  
“The Moon getting close,” James finishes for him, “I know.”  
Remus nods, and looks up at the nearly full moon with a frown. “I just get restless, you know? Like the wolf is trying to claw its way out of me, but it can’t yet. Sometimes, the night before, I can just feel it crawling under my skin. It’s a bit itchy, actually.” James cracks a smile at this, and Remus does too, if only just for a moment.  
“I’m sorry about Lily,” he says, and James shrugs.  
“You spend two years of your life in love with a bird, trying desperately just to get her to notice you, and what does she do? She snogs Severus bloody fucking Snape. How could I be so blind? I mean, how could I be in love with a girl who thinks Snivellus is good kissing material?”  
Remus smiles apologetically. “No use mourning for something that was never there, right?”  
“Well, a few shots of firewhisky helps speed up the process a bit.” There is a moment of silence that’s just slightly uncomfortable. It’s been too much these past weeks; the tension in their once-tight group is monumental and James wonders how to scale it. Remus turns his face up and watches the bright oval moon, just a sliver away from full.  
“Why didn’t you come?” James asks suddenly, and Remus looks down at his bare feet.  
“We’ve got that potions essay due and since the moon is soon and I’ll be out of commission, I figured-”  
“Liar,” James says emphatically, and Remus picked at a loose thread on the knee of his pajama bottoms. “You have to talk to him some time.”  
“I know…” Remus says, and frowns, “I just can’t yet. It’s hard, you know? I just look at him and all I can see is Snape in that hospital bed and then I think that I did that. I ruined him, and he’s going to blame me for the rest of his life. I’m sorry, James, I just- I just can’t yet.”  
James nudges his glasses up on his nose angrily. “How many times do I have to say this before it sinks into your thick skull? It’s. Not. Your. Fault!” Remus looks away and James grabs his arm, “You’ve got to feel something besides this stupid depression! Be angry! Be furious! Hate somebody, hit somebody, just stop beating yourself up!”  
Remus stares at the hand on his arm and then looks up at James, eyes flashing, “No, this is my fault. None of this ever would have happened if I wasn’t what I am. Snape wouldn’t be infected, you wouldn’t have lost Lily, none of it. I may have been an instrument, but whose fault is it for keeping dangerous creatures around where they ruin peoples’ lives?”  
“You’re not a creature, you’re a boy.” James says, and Remus rips his hand away.  
“I Am A Monster!” He shouts, and James is glad that the windows all have silencing charms on them. Remus grabs James’ arms tightly and pulls him closer so they are almost nose to nose. “Do you want to see how much of a monster I am?” he growls, and James looks him steadily in the eye.  
“Hit me,” he says succinctly, and Remus drops his arms in sudden realization, horrified.  
“Hit me, Moony,” James says again, and Remus shakes his head numbly.  
“I know you want to. I can see it in your eyes. Just do it. It‘ll make you feel better.”  
“I-”  
“Hit me“  
“No. I don’t want to hit you.” Remus grips the bottom of his own striped pajama top, wringing the fabric in his hands.  
“Well then do something because you’ve got this look in your eyes like you’re holding something back and you’ve got to let it out or it’ll kill you inside.”  
Remus' eyes flicker downward, catching on something before looking up again into James’ eyes. “I…”  
“Do it!“ James nearly shouts and Remus makes an abortive move with his hands before, in a single motion, stepping forward and taking James’ face in his hands and kissing him squarely on the lips. James freezes, eyes wide as Remus' lips press against his softly, brushing chapped against his lips. His mind races. Moony is kissing me, he thinks, and then berates himself for stating the obvious. Remus' hands quiver against his cheeks, and James softens a bit, not really kissing back, but not pushing him away.  
Remus pulls back after just a few seconds with a look of horror in his eyes. “I’m sorry Prongs I- I’m sorry. Please, forget this ever- oh God I’m sorry,” Remus stutters, and James stares at him and touches his lips, where Remus' lips have just been. Remus' mouth works open and shut a few times, having run out of things to say, and then he scrambles down off the roof and back into the boys’ dormitory, hissing a mild curse as his shin connects with the windowsill.  
“Moony!” James calls out and tries to follow, but he is already gone, and James knows he will have crawled into bed and set a locking spell on his curtains by the time he gets down off the roof.  
“Moony,” he says again, this time quietly, and closes his eyes, remembering the feel of soft lips pressed against his own.  
~O~  
  
Remus proves to be masterful at avoidance. James wants desperately to talk, to say something to him, to find out why and what and how and to figure out how his own feelings factor in, but Remus rushes out after meals before James can ask him. He ignores notes passed in class and only goes back into the Tower to sleep long after everyone else is in bed, locking his curtains with a murmured incantation. James tries to catch his eye, if only to figure out what he’s feeling, but Remus keep his eyes down, staring at the stone floor or his shoes or the grass. Peter tries to talk to him, but even he is brushed off, and Remus is still avoiding Sirius and the pain of remembering.  
Moony kissed me, James thinks for the forty-seventh time that morning, and remembers that tonight is the full moon. Tonight will be Snape’s first change, and Remus says the first one is the worst- that the wolf tests you to see how strong you are, that it takes you to the edge. Dumbledore has divided the shack, so that the two wolves won‘t be able to hurt each other, and James hopes this means that Prongs will be able to go to Moony. But Sirius… he has to talk to Sirius.  
Sirius is sitting on his bed, searching through his trunk for Merlin-only-knows what and James sits next to him.  
“Sirius,” James says, and Sirius looks up from his task.  
“What can I do for you, Prongs?” Sirius says, smiling.  
“Tonight’s the full moon,” he says, and Sirius’ face falls. “I think maybe- don’t take this the wrong way, but maybe it’s best if Padfoot doesn’t come along tonight, for Moony’s sake.”  
“I can’t not come,” huffs Sirius, “I’ve never missed a moon before!”  
“He’s been really agitated lately, what with everything that’s happened, and I just think maybe it would be better if he had more time to cool off, as a person, before you and Moony are in the same space. I’m just afraid he might hurt himself, or he might hurt you because he can’t control it yet.”  
Sirius runs a hand through his black hair and sighs. “Alright Prongs, but you look out for him, you hear me? I can’t tell him I’m sorry enough for everything.”  
James nods, “I will, don’t worry. He’ll come around, I know it.” At least he hopes he knows it, because James suddenly can’t imagine his life without Moony in it.  
  
~O~  
  
Remus awakens as a stiff pile of knitting muscles and mending bones, already clad in his soft cotton pajamas and lying on the lumpy dusty mattress on the second floor of the shack. He remembers pieces: Pomfrey leading Snape and him to the shack, placing Snape in one room and locking the door then leading him to his own space to transform; the tear of ripping muscles and breaking bones; the scent of another wolf; ear-piercing howls coming from behind the wall, scratching, tearing, needing to find this new wolf; the rat running between his legs and then the stag entering, head lowered, cold snuffling nose pressed against his muzzle, calming him, the smell of blood from behind the door, roars and howls and scratching-  
Prongs is here. James sits by Remus' bedside, watching him sleep, smiling softly when he awakens.  
“You came,” Remus rasps out, voice ravaged by endless howling, and James moves his chair closer, offering Remus a glass of water.  
“Of course I came. We didn’t work for three years to become animagi just to abandon you during the full moon.”  
Remus takes the water gratefully and sips it. “I thought I’d ruined it between us forever. I’m sorry, James, I didn’t- I’ve been thinking about it all week, worrying, because I can’t lose you. You’re my best friend, and you and Pete are all I’ve got and if I lost you, I’d be all alone.” Remus had a few casual friends, but avoided getting close. Too many questions would be asked, and he feared his housemates wouldn’t be as accommodating as his three best friends.  
“You and Sirius will make up. It’ll just take time, but friendship like the four of us have doesn’t come around often, and doesn’t end easily.” James says confidently, and Remus smiles half-heartedly.  
“Can we-,” Remus says, taking a deep breath, “Can we just forget I ever- that it ever happened?”  
James looks at him carefully. “What if I don’t want to forget?”  
Remus' breath catches in his throat, unsure, hoping, praying he isn’t misunderstanding James.  
“What if I liked it?” James says, looking more serious than anything.  
“James, I-” Remus starts, but he doesn’t know how to finish, never imagined that this could end in anything but disaster, and James leans close, tilting Remus’ chin up, smiling.  
“This time, is it all right if I kiss you back?” and Remus doesn’t have time to think, or respond, or do anything because James’ lips press against his, chapped and bitten, and he melts, kissing him back gently, softly exploring and then- oh god… James licks his bottom lip and then eases his lips apart, and he’s never had anyone’s tongue in his mouth before and it’s brilliant- wet and warm, sliding across his own tongue, catching on the roof of his mouth and for a moment, he forgets to do anything and has to remind himself to move his own tongue and lips instead of sitting there like some bloody great slug. And this is James, his best friend who he loves more than anything, who he never imagined would ever feel this way, would ever even entertain the idea that a bloke, that Remus could be for him. James whimpers and climbs up on the bed, lying next to Remus and wrapping his arms around his neck, kissing him deeper.  
Remus' groin is beginning to ache deliciously, and he is suddenly terrified that James will notice- but then hopes that maybe he will notice and the mere idea makes him harder, makes his erection press up against the fabric of his pajamas and beg to be noticed. James releases his mouth and kisses Remus' jaw then licks his ear, which Remus had always thought was gross but feels so good that he gasps loudly and clutches at James’ shoulder.  
“Like that?” James’ voice rumbles in his ear, and barely gives him time to stutter out, “Y-yes,” before stealing his breath again with another swipe of his tongue. James’ hands slide under his pajama top, heat against sensitized skin, and then pulls Remus closer so that their bodies are pressing together and Remus' cock presses into James’ hip and God, James is hard too, and Remus kisses him madly and rocks his hips, shifting so their erections press against each other between layers of pajamas. One of them moans, and Remus doesn’t know who, but it doesn’t matter anyways, because nothing is better than this- James' mouth and body against his- and his muscles ache still from his transformation, but it’s dulled by the intense sensation rushing through his body. James slides a hand down his back and over his arse and squeezes, pulling him closer, hips moving faster- it’s suddenly too much and Remus' orgasm surprises him, ripping through him like a tidal wave. He frantically kisses James' sweet mouth and he gasps, shudders, and comes, pressed hard against James’ body.  
Remus takes a few deep breaths as he comes down from his high and James kisses him tenderly, even though he’s still hard, pressed between their bodies. Remus pushes James onto his back and then slides a hand down James' belly, cupping his erection through his trousers.  
“Remus,” James breathes, face blissful, and Remus strokes it a few times, feeling the heat under his hand, its solid weight pressing up against him. He looks at James, eyes a bit wide and then slowly slips his hand under the waistband, tugging the pajama bottoms down , and then looks down.  
He’s seen other boys before in the showers or in the dorm, but never like this- never so close he could touch it. And he wants to touch it, to make James arch and cry out and feel what he felt- so he tentatively wraps his hand around the shaft, stroking it carefully, and James hisses out, “Yesss,” between his teeth and struggles to keep his hips from bucking. Remus' hand moves up and down his shaft, thumb swiping over the head, trying to remember what feels good and just hoping that James will like it and-  
“Oh, oh,” James grunts, and captures Remus' mouth with his and he stills for a split second and then arches and wetness spills over Remus' fingers; James thrusts into the circle of his hand, swallowing his kisses.  
James lays his head back and smiles at Remus, who wipes his hand on the sheets and kisses him softly.  
“Pomfrey will be here soon,” Remus says, and James nods, tugging his pajama bottoms back up and reaching over the side of the bed for his invisibility cloak.  
James kisses him slowly, tongue sliding against his, and caresses his cheek before pulling away and sitting up.  
“Sirius has detention tonight, and Peter will be over in Hufflepuff studying for his arithmancy exam,” James says with a lopsided grin, and Remus grins back.  
Tonight is a new moon, and Remus decides that’s just fine with him.


End file.
